State, DHS to share responsibility for training visa workers
The Homeland Security Department and the State Department formally agreed Monday to share responsibility for training and evaluating the performance of workers assigned to process and adjudicate visa applications at offices overseas.
Under the memorandum of understanding signed by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge and Secretary of State Colin Powell, DHS employees sent abroad to help diplomatic and consular offices identify potentially dangerous visa applicants would attend State Department courses to improve their foreign language skills, learn fraud detection techniques and gain cultural sensitivity. In turn, DHS employees would provide State Department consular officers with tips on screening visa applicants for potential ties to terrorist groups. The 2002 Homeland Security Act mandated the arrangement between the two agencies.
Each department would pay for training for its employees and would be responsible for developing a curriculum in its areas of expertise. The departments would share training facilities.
The agreement would also allow DHS to help State rate how well overseas visa handlers are meeting security-related responsibilities. Homeland Security managers would need to consult with the State Department when developing performance standards, and State would have to adhere to the standards jointly agreed upon and incorporate them into annual employee evaluations. Likewise, the agreement requires DHS managers to consider State Department input when writing evaluations.
"By signing the memorandum of understanding, both DHS and State have pledged to work cooperatively to create and maintain an effective, efficient visa process that secures America's borders from external threats while ensuring that our doors remain open to legitimate travel," said Asa Hutchinson, Homeland Security undersecretary for border and transportation security, at a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security hearing Tuesday.
After the 2002 Homeland Security Act gave DHS a role in processing visas, State and Homeland Security officials entered into extensive discussion over the newly shared responsibilities, Hutchinson said.
State and DHS are unlikely to haggle over training duties, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington think tank favoring stricter immigration policy enforcement. Arguments over newly shared responsibilities are also improbable among lower level overseas employees from the two agencies, he said.
But State and DHS managers and senior executives are much more susceptible to turf wars over visa processing, Krikorian said. The State Department operates under a very different institutional culture than DHS, he said.
"As an agency devoted to diplomacy, [State] wants to curry favor with foreign governments, not undertake strict enforcement of U.S. [immigration] laws," he said. "[State] sees the customers it needs to satisfy as visa applicants rather than the American people."
Conflicts between State Department and DHS interests are especially noticeable in countries such as Saudi Arabia, where diplomats are concerned about pleasing the ruling family, but Homeland Security officials worry about visa applicants with dubious connections, according to Krikorian. "[State] sees the issuance of visas as a tool of diplomacy rather than for homeland security, and that's never going to change," he said.
In addition, State employees do not view visa processing or adjudication as a plum assignment, Krikorian said. Rather, the positions are usually "dumped on [young] foreign service officers as a form of hazing or rite of passage," he explained. DHS employees would actually compete for these assignments, he predicted.
Krikorian said he believes visa processing and adjudication would be better left in the hands of one agency, with control over the process from start to finish. He said that DHS is the proper agency for the job because its employees would be more dedicated to detecting visa fraud and eliminating security threats.
But DHS has already lost its opportunity to take over the visa process, and barring another security lapse leading to a terrorist attack, will need to share responsibilities with State, Krikorian said. Given that reality, he praised the memorandum of understanding.
"This is the best arrangement that can be expected from an inadequate setup," he said. "But it's not going to prove workable in the long run."